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Celebrate Water Professionals Appreciation Day on Monday, May 4th

Senate Bill 119, which will designate the first Monday in May each year as Water Professionals Appreciation Day in Georgia, was approved by both the Senate and House, and awaits Governor Deal's signature. This will bring recognition EVERY YEAR to the water professionals that serve the State of Georgia. We believe this will continue to build appreciation and support for clean water and the work that we do to protect our citizens and environment! Water professionals provide critical services that are most often taken for granted, but are essential to virtually everything we do. Institutionalizing a special day of recognition will allow us to plan events to celebrate our successes and draw attention to the challenges we face, and recognize the thousands of professionals who work tirelessly to ensure that our tap water is safe and that our water resources are protected and properly managed.

We want to encourage everyone to do whatever possible to recognize water professionals on Monday, May 4. We have developed a draft resolution for consideration by city councils, county commissions, authority boards, etc. to recognize water professionals at all levels--from operator to engineer, lab analyst to utility director, consultants, equipment representatives, and others—who dedicate their professional lives to ensuring that we can all enjoy a quality of life unlike anywhere else on earth as a direct result of our being able to go to the tap with the assurance that the water that comes out will be clean and safe, and that we can dispose of our wastewater with the confidence that it will be properly treated and returned to the environment in a safe manner.

To draw attention to this new designation, Saturday, May 2, has been designated Water Appreciation Day. This will be a full-day celebration on Saturday, May 2nd, and will include stream clean-ups around the metro area. The stream clean-ups are being coordinated with Rivers Alive, Georgia EPD's Adopt-a-Stream program. The day's activities will culminate with a reception at Sweetwater Brewery coordinated by the Georgia Section of the American Water Works Association (a GAWP partner), which will be promoted as No Water, No Beer. (Purchase tickets for the No Water, No Beer Festival here).

On behalf of GAWP and our partnering organizations, we encourage you to schedule some sort of water awareness and appreciation activity (or activities) for Saturday, May 2. Activities may include stream, river, and lake clean-ups; plant tours; water taste tests; or anything to raise awareness and appreciation of this precious resource that we, as water professionals, dedicate our professional lives to protecting and managing, yet the general public we serve most often takes for granted. Just as importantly, we urge you to recognize your water professionals locally and let them know that they are appreciated.

We ask that you register any stream clean-up activities with Rivers Alive at www.riversalive.com as soon as possible, especially if they are open to the public. We also ask that you notify GAWP of any activities or recognitions that you have planned by contacting Angela Bond (abond@gawp.org) or Jack Dozier (jack@gawp.org).